


Motivational

by joosetta



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-15
Updated: 2011-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:25:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joosetta/pseuds/joosetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam gets a call from Andy leading them to a hunt with ... interesting conclusions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Motivational

Sam woke up with a splitting headache and his cell phone going crazy on the bedside table. Dean was up, his bedcovers tossed half on the floor, but Sam could hear the hiss of a shower running. With a grunt, he fumbled for his cell and took the call.

"Sam! Hey, maybe you don't remember—it's Andy. Andy Gallagher."

Sam did remember, very clearly. Andy wasn't exactly the kind of person you forgot easily. Sam didn't say that, though. He just sat up a little in the bed and grunted, "Hey Andy, what's up?"

"Well, remember you told me to call if I ran into anything to do with…my abilities, or anything like that? I think I found another person like me."

"Are you serious?" Sam sat straight up at that, rubbing his face. He could hear the muffled buzz of traffic on the other end of the line, and assumed Andy was driving.

"Yeah, man. This woman, couple of towns over. She's a motivational speaker, and I've heard people saying she can persuade you to do anything, you know? At first I thought it was just a coincidence or something, but people have been describing it as just. Weird. So I figured I would check it out."

It sounded a little too much like a false alarm to Sam, but he didn't say that either. "That does sound weird. But it could just be someone who's good with words. Don't get your hopes up."

"Yeah, yeah. I know." There was a shuffling sound as if Andy had switched the phone from one ear to the other. "Just, there's something else. Something kinda weird going on. Sounded like your demon hunter-y stuff. You know? I gotta work it out first, so I'll call you back."

Before Sam could say anything else, like _Be careful_ , or _Where the hell are you going?_ , Andy had hung up.

"Anyone important?" Dean was framed by the bathroom doorjamb, wet hair sticking out in all directions. He was still wearing a ring of mottled bruises around his throat from the previous night's run-in with a spirit, and the contrast of livid, marked skin against the white collar of his T-shirt was startling.

"Ah, just Andy. I'll call him later and see what he's up to."

Dean shrugged and grabbed his shirt from the chair. By the time Sam finally got to his shower, the hot water had run out. He didn't get _too_ mad at Dean though, because the cold helped dispel his headache, and shake off any lingering worries he had about Andy.

\----

A week later, and this time Sam woke up before dawn. The painkillers had worn off, pain returning to remind him that a black dog had decided to try and gnaw his leg off. "Shit," he grumbled, sitting up awkwardly, poking around on the bedside table to try and find some more pills. Dean was dead to the world, face-down on his muddy bedspread. If Sam hadn't been feeling like death warmed over himself, he might have gotten up and pulled his brother's shoes off, or maybe even rolled him under the covers.

As it was, Sam just watched him for a little while, allowing himself to feel grateful that once again he wasn't waking up to another pyre.

Somewhere under a pile of bloody, ripped up denim on the floor, his cell phone made the disgruntled blurp that meant he had a voicemail. Sam almost remembered it ringing before, when he was still packing gauze into his wound and tossing back painkillers. The whole night was a bit of a haze.

His phone continued to ring, and Dean groaned into his pillow. Grimacing, Sam struggled to reach down and silence it. He didn't want to wake Dean up if he could avoid it.

Sixteen missed calls, four voicemail messages. From Andy.

 _Heeeey Sam, It's Andy again. Listen, I've run into a few interesting things to do with the motivational speaker lady. I think she does have the same powers as me. Anyway, call me back?_

 _Sam! Andy again, I called the other day, but I guess you're busy. Hope everything's okay. Listen, this lady, she's pretty bad news. I think she's up to something. Call me!_

 _Dude, I hope you're not dead. I think there's a demon or something killing people. I'm in Crescent, Oklahoma. I've been following the lady around, and there's something not quite right about her. It's weird, man. I better go._

 _Seriously, Sam. Andy again. This is getting pretty scary. Call me._

Sam groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. He should have known better than to encourage Andy on his junior hunter escapade. He dialed return call, and settled back into watching Dean sleep as Andy's phone rang. And rang.

"C'mon," Sam muttered, hoping Andy was just passed out or busy getting laid. The third time he reached voicemail, Sam left a message.

"Hey, Andy? It's Sam. Listen to me. Just get out of there as fast as you can. Dean and I will come and back you up as soon as possible. If something is going on, then it isn't safe for you to hang around. Let me know if you're okay."

"Who're you talkin' to?" Dean mumbled, face full of pillow.

"Dean," Sam slowly, _really_ slowly, shifted his injured leg to hang over the side of the bed, "We gotta go to Crescent. We gotta go to Oklahoma."

When Dean didn't move, still buried face-down, Sam lobbed a bloodstained ball of bandages at his head.

"It's a hunt, Dean."

Dean groaned and rolled over, scrubbing at his face. They made it out of the motel in under an hour, and Sam didn't tell Dean about the fresh blood making his jeans stick to his leg.

\----

Crescent, Oklahoma was tiny. It took them less than ten minutes to find Andy's van, parked lopsided and looking incongruous on the main road into town. It was getting some pretty odd looks from passersby, even with the painting half obscured by dust and grime. Sam knocked on the back door, but after about five minutes it was pretty obvious Andy wasn't home.

"I hope he didn't try tailing the chick in _this_. Thing sticks out like a sore thumb," Dean grumbled, peering into the cab and kicking at the front tires.

"Yeah, and the Impala is far more subtle."  
Sam knew he was being a bitch; Dean did drive him all the way to Oklahoma with only a few voicemails to go on, after all. But his leg felt exactly like a half-chewed-off leg should feel. Fucking sore.

Dean kept watch as Sam forced open the back of the van. Everything inside was pretty much the same- scattered clothes and books, drug paraphernalia, glitter ball. Lying on the top of all the mess, though, were what looked like notes, the crude beginnings of research into a hunt.

"You gotta be kidding me." Dean picked up a sheet of what looked like police records. Beneath that were flyers advertising a self-help course run by Angelica Stark. Her printed face smiled enigmatically out from beneath a curtain of blond hair. Dean whistled.

"I think I get why she's so persuasive, Sammy. She's _hot_. Mystery solved."

"Shut up." Sam just snatched the rest of the notes from Dean and thumbed through them, looking for any sort of clue as to where Andy might have gone. It looked as if he had been investigating a few local disappearances, all teenage boys, stretching back over the last year.

"So. This Angelica lady—she's holding a taster class in a local church this evening. Think we should check it out?" Dean was still holding the flyer, absorbed no doubt in all of Ms. Stark's attributes.

"Maybe," Sam muttered and wrinkled his nose, staring at the papers. "Do you think Andy just walked into the police station and asked for these?" When he looked back up, Dean had shoved the flyer in his pocket and was nodding, lips pursed. "So the officer there might have seen where he went?"

"Worth a try." Sam met Dean's grin with one of his own, and made sure not to grimace at the pain in his leg when they set off back to the car. He wasn't sure whether Dean hadn't noticed the stain of blood blooming just below his knee, or was simply ignoring it.

\----

Officer Craig Johnson, figurehead of Crescent Oklahoma's fine police force, was eager to please. Especially two state police officers looking for a witness. He seemed baffled by their description of a small, unshaven, dark-haired man from out of town, but checked the log and confirmed that he had printed out a set of reports earlier on in the week for a Mr. _Darth Vader_.

"Huh, that's strange" Craig muttered, rubbing his mouth. "Someone's probably fooling around. Kids playing pranks, maybe."

"No problem," Sam interrupted, elbowing Dean hard in the side to stop him from snickering. "Thanks very much for your time, officer."

Craig was still staring confusedly, at his own log book when they took their leave.

"Ah man, Darth Vader. I _like_ Andy," Dean crowed, shrugging his shoulders inside his jacket. He was walking slower, keeping pace with Sam, who was still struggling a little with his leg.

"I know you do." Sam stopped, staring up and down Grand Avenue, leaning all his weight on his good leg, "When was that meeting again?"

\----

Angelica Stark was twice as beautiful in person as she was on paper. Even Sam felt a blossom of _something_ in his gut as he took a seat beside Dean in the crowded church hall.

"Oh man," Dean said under his breath, "You sure this is a hunt? 'Cause seriously, Sam, I would give _her_ my car without any sort of mind control whatsoever."

"You don't mean that," Sam murmured back, smiling. There was something endearing about Dean when he got himself worked up over a woman. Sickening, but endearing all the same. As Angelica took the podium, the buzz of chatter in the hall fell almost reverentially silent. She tossed her hair, tugged smartly on the hem of her perfectly tailored little jacket and leaned into the microphone.

"So," she began, voice just as lovely as the rest of her, "how many of you wish you could make more out of your lives?"

\----

"Well, _that_ was enlightening," Sam said, as Angelica _finally_ moved perkily from the podium to the enrolment table, already fielding applications. Beside him, Dean grunted, blinking blearily awake.

"Holy shit," he said, watching the people flocking to sign up for her course, "look at all of them! Did I miss something? Was she offering a little extra for the first 100 enrolled?"

"Maybe you just never wanted to _better yourself_ Dean," Sam sniped, eyeing his brother.

"Can't better perfection, Sammy." Sam just pursed his lips in exasperation and turned his attention back to Angelica, who so far seemed to be doing nothing even remotely evil. Unless extorting lots of money from insecure people could really be classed as evil. "C'mon man, this is a dead end. Andy smoked too much weed, started seeing a conspiracy where there wasn't one, end of story."

Sam frowned, still watching Angelica. There was something about her that was just _appealing_. Her manner, her friendly smile. She was welcoming, stunningly beautiful without seeming distant or out of reach. "Maybe." He stood, ignoring Dean's snort, and pushed his way through the crowd, dodging outstretched arms and hastily completed application forms. With a final push, he made it to the very front, face to face with Angelica herself, perfect pink lips parted over perfect white teeth in a _perfect_ smile.

"Hello, what's your name?" she asked, blue eyes honing in on Sam like he was the only one in the room.

"Sam," he began, hoping to question her quickly. She cut in before he could complete his introduction, though, grasping his hand and shaking it firmly.

"Hello _Sam_ ," she burbled, shaking her hair away from her face. "Have you decided to sign up for my program?"

For one sickening moment, Sam felt himself consider it. She was so friendly, so genuinely appealing, maybe there was something she could do for him. Maybe he had been selling himself short. It passed as soon as he felt a jolt of pain in his leg and remembered that he was _Sam Winchester_ , and personal success wasn't something he needed anymore.

"Not yet, still thinking about it. I was wondering if—"

Angelica was already gone, grasping the hand of another customer, one more likely to spend $100 an hour to better themselves. Sam glanced back at Dean, who looked like he was sleeping again, and sighed.

"C'mon." Sam shoved Dean hard in the shoulder to wake him up, and shuffled over to the door. It was already dark outside, and he was suddenly, achingly tired.

\----

The motel room was fitted out in a faded green, but as far as motel rooms went, it was much nicer than any Sam had seen in a long time. That was Crescent, Oklahoma for you. Just plain nice all over.

The moment he was through the door, Sam slumped onto his bed and began taking his shoes off slowly. He didn't even notice Dean still standing there until he had finished.

"Dean."

"You gonna let me look at that leg now, Sammy?" Dean's voice was dangerously low. Sam thought about arguing—he was perfectly able to dress the wound himself—but in the end, he just stood and pulled off his pants carefully, stretching out his injured leg.

"The bandages are in the green bag," Sam offered, flinching when Dean pressed his thumb against the dirty dressing.

"I know," Dean said, under his breath. He was quick and brutal, but it was exactly what Sam needed. It felt as if boundary lines had been redrawn in chalk. Chalk that had been smudged for a little too long to be comfortable.

"You've been a real bitch all day, you know that?" Dean grunted, kicking away his jeans and flopping onto the other bed. He rolled onto his side until all Sam could see of him was the broad bulk of his shoulders, and his hair mussed on the pillow. Dean switched off the light. "Take some more painkillers tomorrow," he added, his voice already slurred by sleep.

\----

Waking up to the sound of his cell phone ringing was beginning to get a little old. Sam groaned and groped around in the pile of discarded clothes at his bedside until he read the caller ID. _Andy_.

"Andy? You ok?"

"Yeah, man. I got locked in someone's garage for a whole day. Long story."  
He sounded like he was walking along the street- Sam could hear the occasional roar of traffic passing.  
"Listen, are you guys anywhere near Crescent?"

"We're _in_ Crescent," Sam said, brow furrowed. Dean groaned and rolled over; it had to be barely 6 AM.

"Awesome. I think she's like, a demon or something. She's been taking these boys. I don't know why. I checked out her house, nothing there."

"Andy, wait, how do you know it's her? Dean and I went to her taster session, and she seemed perfectly normal."

"She's _immune_. You know, to my powers. She doesn't even notice them. Just like you. You guys at the motel? I'll be right over."

Andy hung up, and Sam just stared at his phone for a moment, wondering what the hell was going on. Crescent wasn't exactly a town that suggested trouble: no troublemakers, barely any crime at all. The missing boys had been a big deal, and still were.

Something about the whole situation didn't fit.

Sam kicked the side of Dean's bed to wake him up, and took a shower.

\----

Andy looked exactly the same. Maybe a little more bedraggled, a little less bright-eyed. He told Sam and Dean the whole epic story from start to finish over three cups of coffee in the motel restaurant.

"She moved here like, a year ago. Started offering the courses just after. For a while she wasn't too popular, but apparently she hit the big time six months ago, started really pulling in customers." Andy made a face, wrinkling his nose and pursing his lips. "The first disappearance? Happened the day she arrived. Crescent wakes up with a local boy missing, and a new lady resident."

"Coincidence," Dean grunted. He was eating, and for all intents and purposes, paying no attention to anything but his food. Sam knew better.

"No, no, that's what I thought," Andy flapped his hands as a kind of punctuation, "but the second disappearance occurred on the same day she hit the big time. Overnight success."

"Still a coincidence. From what you told us, it isn't as if this woman needed any help. I assume she was always that beautiful," Dean said, and chugged on his coffee before shoveling the last of his food away.

"Aha, but all the boys were last seen at one of Angelica's meetings. Or, even better, near where she lives. This hunting thing is pretty cool by the way," Andy poked at a hole in the wrist of his shirt, wriggling his fingertip through it. "Cool. But scary."

Dean cast Sam a _look_.

"Right," Sam sighed, pulling the scattered papers together and piling them neatly between his plate and Dean's. It was enough to warrant a hunt, no doubt about that, but all loose ends and unexplored questions. If there was one thing Andy wasn't, it was methodical. "I'll check out Angelica's background, where she came from. Dean, go with Andy to check out her house. Check for sulphur, EMF, the works."

Dean grunted, but stood without much more complaint. "C'mon, Andy. Let's go make a house call."

Sam watched them go, and caught Dean's backward glance, something near concern. Sam thumped his leg a little to show him that it wasn't going to fall off, and Dean turned back, satisfied.

\----

Five hours and countless cups of coffee later, Sam had something. The sun was setting on Crescent, painting the dusty parking lot an unusually forgiving shade of orange. Sam could hear children screeching and chattering outside as they trudged along the main road from town. They were walking with the easy, friendly pace of kids who knew they had nothing but Playstation games and home-cooked dinners to return to.

When he was finally old enough to be embarrassed about it, Sam had mostly avoided telling the kids at school he lived in a motel. He used to walk with them all the way to their pretty suburban houses, and keep walking until there was no one left to see him turn back, trudge off to a lukewarm microwave dinner and a pile of weapons that needed cleaning.

The memory wasn't as bitter as Sam thought it might be. He rummaged in his back pocket, rooting for change for another coffee, and considered calling Dean. He was just about to do that, when he caught the distinctive chug of the Impala pulling up. The grumble of her engine shutting down, the squeal of the doors.

Dean looked more than frustrated as he strode into the motel room. Every inch of him was tense with the need, Sam guessed, to smack someone. Andy looked more spooked by that than anything else.

"Tell me you have some dirt on this Angelica lady. Please. I have followed her around all day. Unless low fat yoghurt is some kind of satanic superfood, then she is squeaky clean." Dean tossed his jacket onto the bed, and sat heavily down beside it.

"Not quite," Sam gestured to the screen of his laptop. Andy hurried over to peer at the screen.

"It's a death certificate?" Andy kept reading. "For an Angelica Magdalene Stark born in Joplin, Missouri. Says here she died at birth. Her mother Marie died, too."

"You serious?" Dean moved to hover over Sam's other shoulder. He smelled of coffee, leather, lots of other things that Sam recognized in an odd kind of rush. Just like that, Sam could clearly and exactly remember the last time Dean had stood so close—two weeks ago, loading a shotgun with rock salt, whispering instructions in his ear. Sam cleared his throat.

"Yup, Angelica was stillborn. No real explanation, medically. The pregnancy had been smooth, both parents were healthy and had good family history. She was just. Born dead."

"So this Angelica is stealing her name?" Andy asked, leaning even closer to the screen, as if proximity would reveal the answer.

"That's what you'd think. Problem is, exactly seven years later, little Angelica's grave was robbed. It was a pretty big deal at the time. Her father tried to sue the cemetery."

"Creepy," Andy muttered, and Dean gripped Sam's shoulder a little tighter in a sort of gratitude. _Thanks for turning this into a real hunt._

"It gets creepier. Couple of months later, when the dust settled, a seven-year-old named Angelica Stark started attending the local primary school a few towns over from Joplin." Sam pulled up the picture: a little blonde schoolgirl, proudly displaying a paper maché hippopotamus, part of a montage printed in the local newspaper.

It was unquestionably their Angelica; hidden in her chubby cheeks were the beginnings of startling beauty. Sam lifted his hands from the keyboard for a moment, and a little irrationally, waited for Dean to prompt him on.

"So? Come on man, I know you have more." Again with the squeeze on his shoulder. Sam almost smiled.

"I do. Baby Angelica's mother, the one who died in childbirth? Well, she was kind of a local crazy. Claimed she was visited by fairies, that she was destined to marry one and had let it into her bed. No one really bought it. She was pretty harmless. But I figured I had better pull up info on her, too." Sam dropped his hands back onto the keyboard and showed them the photo.

It was an older photo, dated 1978, blurred and scanned a little lopsided, but still clear. The woman was smiling out at the camera as if she didn't have a care in the world. Dean whistled long and low.

"She looks _just_ like Angelica. Are you serious?" Andy shook his head incredulously. "This is weird, man."

"Weird doesn't even begin to describe it," Sam muttered, staring at the screen.

\----

Sam spent the rest of the evening trying to dig up anything on any sort of demon who might resurrect and possess children, and then when that failed, any lore on children mysteriously coming back to life after seven years in the dirt. It was a fruitless task, and not much helped by Andy flicking through the journal and asking questions at every page.

Dean sat cross-legged on the floor, cleaning his weapons methodically. He answered Andy's questions without much complaint, and their back and forth banter on the nature of ghosts was oddly comforting. Dean really seemed to trust Andy, and that was a rare thing.

"Nothing," Sam said eventually, closing the laptop and rubbing his face. He was stumped. It was one thing trying to theorize why Angelica might be taking teenage boys, and another entirely digging up why she had apparently been dead for the first seven years of her life. It was a mess.

"Nothing? At all?" Andy lifted the journal, fingers curled around the page on succubi. "Not even in here?"

Sam shook his head and let out a long sigh. Dean continued to clean his guns, but he had an irritated crease between his eyes. "So we hit up her house again, and really take a good long look," Dean said, eventually, briskly cleaning the last shotgun, shoulders hunched. "Something about that chick is wrong, and maybe if we dig a little deeper we'll find some real evidence."

When he looked up at Sam, Dean had a familiar hard look in his eyes. He was sold on this hunt. Sam knew it right then, and felt an embarrassing kind of thrill somewhere in his stomach.

\----

The next morning, Sam and Dean left Andy parked outside the modest office Angelica was using to see her clients with the instruction to call if she looked like she was heading home. They left the Impala parked on the corner of her street, as inconspicuous as they could get.

Angelica's house was pretty, with white walls and a neatly painted green porch. She had a sprinkler in the center of her sloping lawn and two well-kept flower baskets by her door.

"Andy got stuck in her garage," Dean snickered as they trudged up her drive. Sam's leg was not taking too well to the gravel, but he laughed anyway, imagining Andy sitting desolately by the closed garage door, stuck there, hiding until Angelica drove away the next morning.

"He hasn't done too badly," Sam murmured, working the lock on the back door. He was good enough at lock picking now to do it with one pick, hold up his end of a conversation, even train a gun on someone at the same time.

"Nah, he's a smart guy," Dean agreed, using the sleeve of his leather jacket to turn the handle and open the door. They had both started being a lot more careful about fingerprints lately, what with the promise of the FBI on their heels if they weren't. "Right. Last time I was here, all I found was a lot of health foods and fashion mags. Work your geeky magic, Sammy." Dean's raised arms were teasing, but the twist of his mouth suggested he believed Sam would find the detail he and Andy had missed.

Angelica's house was neat, pleasantly decorated. She kept her magazines in order, her salads refrigerated in stacked tupperware. Her spare keys dangled on a cute little hook by the kitchen door. Everything about the place was irritating in its normality.

Sam wondered if this would have been what living with Jess might have been like after they graduated. It took him a moment to reject that thought. Jess had been _messy_ , leaving her underwear and sketchbooks scattered around, one sneaker tucked under the sofa, the other inexplicably in the cupboard under the sink. Sam remembered her and felt distant, wondering when he had started replacing the truth of her with a strange illusion of domestic perfection.

Dean trudged upstairs, and Sam listened to him digging around in Angelica's underwear drawer, or whatever he was up to. Sam just stood, staring at the keys hanging by the door wondering what Angelica's secret was, whether her perfect house was just a mask hiding something messy.

There was one set of house keys, the ignition key for an Audi, and a small silver key marked with a serial number. It looked like the key to a storage locker of some type, and slowly, Sam realized that the key ring it was hanging from was smudged with a thumbprint of something reddish. Dried blood.

"Dean," he called, just as his phone buzzed in his pocket. As Dean lumbered down the stairs, Sam directed his attention to the key with a gesture, and Dean grinned and noted down the serial, leaving the key carefully where it hung.

"Andy? Is she on her way?" Sam watched the front door, listening for the sound of a car engine approaching.

"No, no. She's still in there. Listen, I think I've figured it out."

"Figured what out?" Sam asked, frowning. Andy sounded excited, voice muffled against the background of traffic.

"I know what she is."

\----

"When did you get that?" Dean snapped, reaching out for the journal in Andy's grip. Andy kept hold of it, raising his free hand in a peaceful gesture.

"I just borrowed it. You know, reading material while I waited,"

Sam could feel Dean tensing at that, Andy helping himself to their father's belongings. It was a little too much. But Andy didn't know; how could he? Sam pushed past Dean and took the seat next to Andy on the bench.

"What did you find?"

"It's right here." Andy thumbed through the journal, grinning. He sounded ecstatic, and Sam had a sudden flush of nostalgia, remembering the first time he had figured out a hunt on his own, the flash of pride he had seen in his Dad's eyes. That had been a very long time ago. "I was just checking out a few of the articles here about succubi, right, and I came across how sometimes an incubus will impregnate a human woman. It says that when the child is born—wait—" Andy read for a moment, lips moving, then grinned, jabbing the page. "Here! 'The product of the union between incubus and human woman results in an odorous being: the cambion, a child so shunned by this world that it spends the first seven years of its life as if dead. On awakening on its seventh birthday, the cambion has more wit and strength than any human, and is not susceptible to powers born of a demon's touch.' "

"A cambion?" Dean sounded disbelieving. "What the hell?"

"Apparently," Sam read, pulling the journal from Andy's grip, "they have the power of persuasion, too, and are unusually beautiful and charming. But susceptible to the influence of evil."

"Sounds about right," Dean said, grudgingly, scratching at his jaw. He looked tired, and Sam was thrown by that for a moment, staring at his brother, lips pursed.

"So why is she taking the boys?" Andy asked. The million dollar question.

"Well," Dean said, and flashed his teeth in a grin, "I have an idea where we can find out." He raised a scrap of paper: the hastily scrawled serial number. "Sturnes Security Storage, unit 3245."

\----

They waited until nightfall, and Dean spent the time carefully preparing two guns with consecrated iron rounds. A cambion was technically human, he explained to Andy in between verses of the Latin incantation, but a little extra holy never did anyone any harm.

Andy didn't ask for a gun and Dean didn't offer, instead handing him a neat steel knife, showing him how to strap it next to his leg, draw it swiftly. Sam watched them, and remembered Dean doing the same for him.

"Stay back," Dean warned Andy as they left the Impala and stole carefully towards the high wire fence surrounding the storage units. They hopped the fence with relatively little trouble, Andy's shirt catching once on the barbed wire, Sam swearing as he landed on his bad leg.

"What did you do to it?" Andy asked, voice hushed. It was a pretty inappropriate time for it, but Sam knew he was nervous.

"A dog tried to eat it," Dean said, gruffly, leading them past row after row of storage units, some locked, others open and empty, gaping black mouths in the dark. Unit 3245 was at the end of a row, and Sam picked the lock, Dean standing close enough that his leg was pressed warm and vigilant against Sam's shoulder.

"Ready?" Sam asked, and Andy nodded, fingers twisted in the hem of his shirt. With a grunt, Dean hooked his fingers under the door and hauled it up, wincing when the metal groaned in protest. The storage unit was pitch black inside. Sam ducked in, pressing against the near wall and listening for any kind of movement.

He could barely see, and there was no light at all after Dean and Andy had ducked inside, the door sliding closed behind them. Sam had to take a long moment to acclimatize to the dark.

After a moment of silence during which no one leaped out from the shadows, Sam reached for his flashlight and turned it on, illuminating a sweep of the interior. Dean stood blinking by a pile of neatly packed cardboard boxes, Andy hunched at his side. Sam swept the flashlight back across the floor and up to the far wall.

The rest of the space was empty, save for two upturned plastic chairs and several long freezer boxes crowding against the back wall. Dean was already making his way towards them, turning on his own flashlight.

"Watch the door," Sam instructed Andy, and moved to the cardboard boxes, peering inside them. The first was filled with lace tablecloths, but under that Sam unearthed an impressive collection of dark magic tomes. He lifted one, peering at the title, Russian, printed in peeling gold on the leather. He couldn't understand the text inside, but a few pages in there were several gory diagrams, seemingly on how to dissect a human body in a specific manner.

"Sam," Dean began, voice low, "you better come see this." He had one of the freezers open, and Sam could pretty much guess what lay inside it. He jogged over, flashlight creating crazy shadows on the wall.  
"Guess we were right," Dean murmured, pulling back a sheet of plastic, opaque with encrusted ice. Beneath it were the neatly stacked limbs of a teenage boy, his head nestled between the curve of his frozen arms, eyes open and glassy.

"Ugh," Sam recoiled, swallowing hard. Dean let the plastic fall back. "Looks like she was using them for some sort of ritual."

"What for?" Dean took the book from Sam and squinted at it.

"Can't say. It's all in Russian."

"Russian?" Andy interrupted, still hidden in shadow by the door. Sam looked up, eyebrows raised. "I can read a bit," Andy continued, curling one hand under his chin. He hesitated, peering through the slat in the door for a moment before walking over, other hand held flat against the dagger at his side.

"It says—" Andy wrinkled his nose at the diagrams and paled, but kept reading. "Something about how performing the d-dissection, yeah. And consuming the remains of the inno—uh, I think it says innocents. It says it will cause strength. I think."

"Almost."

Sam spun around, hand moving to the gun tucked into the back of his pants. Angelica stood by the closed door, hair hiding her eyes. In the half light she looked even more beautiful, every part of her soft and feminine. Every part but her cold, wicked smile.

"The word you were looking for was vitality, but it's pretty much six and half a dozen. All you really need to know," she was just standing there, and Sam wondered why he wasn't shooting, why Dean hadn't taken her down already, "is that now I am going to kill you."

Sam squeezed his hand into a fist, digging his nails into his palm, and it seemed to act as a catalyst. He grabbed his gun and drew it, but by the time he had aimed at Angelica she was already gone, moving too fast for Sam to track. He could feel Dean frozen behind him, and Andy shaking at his side, all in the half second between Angelica moving and Sam being thrown backwards, smacking the wall and cracking his head.

For a moment, all he saw were stars and bright, blood red. Then Sam felt his leg and his back in agony, and saw Dean slumped against the freezer, blood smearing his mouth.

"Dean!" Sam shouted, and his voice sounded tinny and distant. He fumbled for his gun, and struggled to sit up.

"I'd put that away, if I were you." Angelica was suddenly in front of him, long legs elegantly tucked into a crouch. Behind the curtain of her blonde hair her eyes glowed icy blue. "It won't do much good. Why do you think I prepared such _special_ meals?" She reached out and grabbed a handful of Sam's hair, and her grip was inhumanly strong, dragging him forward. He felt his ribs grating together as he moved, probably broken.

"This is my place, _my_ town, and I can do whatever I want. The people here, they need me. I can't let a few unwashed _hunters_ jeopardize that."

Sam could taste iron in his throat, blood welling up from somewhere. He opened his mouth, and felt Angelica's grip twist in his hair, pulling his neck back. She could do it, Sam knew. With one twist of her hand his neck would be broken. No do-overs. A feeling of still, cold panic stole over him, and the pit of his stomach dropped away. He was going to die. And so was Dean.

There was a sudden crack—a gunshot—and Angelica jerked away from Sam, stumbling and holding her hands over her side. Dean stood, propped up by the freezer. Sam scanned the room, trying to find Andy, but the flashlights had fallen in the corner nearest the freezer and the rest of the space was hidden in pitch black shadow.

Dean shot again and again, five more times, and Angelica continued to stagger back.

"It isn't going to work!" She shouted, sounding furious. She seemed unable to move as fast riddled with bullet holes, though, and Sam fumbled for his own gun, aiming it unsteadily at her head. For a moment, he met her eyes, and felt the full brunt of her glamour: her beauty and her terrible nature. With all her rage laid bare like that, Angelica was the ugliest thing Sam had ever seen.

He tightened his grip on his gun and fired.

Angelica was knocked back by the bullet, slumping against the far wall, sliding down through a red spray of her own blood. Sam closed his eyes and gasped raggedly.

"Sam. Sam!" It was Andy, stumbling out from behind the boxes, the Russian book in his hands. "You have to get her in the heart," he said, staring first at Sam and then Angelica, who was slumped against the wall. By the freezer box, Dean groaned.

"The knife. Andy, do it." For a moment, Andy seemed to hesitate, hand hovering by his side. Then Angelica's fingers twitched against the bloody floor and he was on his knees, the blade of the knife flashing as he thrust it into her.

The reaction was instant. Angelica screeched like an animal, eyes opening bright and blue, glowing in the bloody red of her face. Andy flinched back, dragging the knife with him, and for a moment blood pumped weakly from the wound. As Angelica's screech trailed away, her skin seemed to fade, turning waxy and pale, until she sat stiff and blue against the wall. She looked like a corpse of several days, skin mottled purple.

"Oh my god," Andy said, and turned away, retching. Sam knew how he felt.

\----

Somehow, Dean managed to get Sam to his feet, and Sam watched as Andy salted the storage vault, hands shaking, and dropped a bundle of lit matches on the fuel poured across the corpse. The freezer boxes would survive the fire, and at least the parents of the missing boys would never have to wonder.

It was little comfort.

Sam felt as if he were about to fall to pieces. He let Dean check him, rough hands on his skull, his ribs, steady down his arms and legs. He had been lucky, they both had. Only scrapes and cuts, nothing serious.

It felt like they'd barely made it out alive. Andy sat hunched in the back seat of the Impala, hands curled under his chin, expression hollow. He was silent all the way to the motel parking lot, sirens blaring in the distance. They would have to clear out before morning. In a town as small as Crescent, it wouldn't take long for the finger of blame to fall on a few suspicious outsiders.

But first, Sam needed to wash the blood off his face, replace the dressing on his leg, and-

"I need a fucking drink." Dean's hands were ten and two on the steering wheel, his shoulders hunched. In the back seat Andy let out a little murmur that seemed to agree.

"And where the hell are we going to get liquor at this time of night?" Sam snapped, mostly because it sounded like a damn good idea and he wished it didn't. Alcohol didn't really fix anything, but sometimes Sam knew he just needed to get blind drunk for everything to feel fine again.

"I know," Andy murmured, and smiled a smile Sam hadn't realized he'd been waiting for.

\----

The back of the van was crowded, barely enough room for all three of them and Sam's legs. It was hot, and stank of the musky dorm room smell Sam remembered unfavorably from college. It didn't matter much though, because he had a bottle of whiskey half empty between his legs, and Dean and Andy were bickering about the best Rolling Stones album. They both sounded like assholes, but Sam forgave them because he was just so damn glad they were both alive.

"If I hear you say anything other than Exile on Main Street, Andy, I am gonna cry," Dean slurred, and raised his own bottle of—whatever it was—in a kind of warning. He was slumped back into the pillows, and from where Sam was lying, he looked small and strangely fragile.

"Whatever, this'll shut you up." Andy grinned wide and raised a hand. Sam squinted to see what was in his grip, and slid back against the wall when he worked out that it was a joint.

"Seriously," Sam began, trying to remember the exact wording of all the reasons why drugs were a bad idea.

"No good sentence ever begins with 'seriously'," Andy proclaimed, lighting up and taking a huge toke. The smell made Sam's eyes water.

"Amen," Dean said, holding his hand out for the joint. Sam watched him inhale, watched his face as he took the hit, watched his eyelids flutter, watched the smoke curl away from between his lips as he exhaled. "Oh Andy," Dean murmured, pausing for longer than he should, "I think I love you."

"I love you too, man," Andy's grin was wider than Sam though was anatomically possible. He took the joint back, inspected it, and then held it out to Sam, still grinning, disarmingly happy.

Sam glanced at Dean, lounging boneless across from him, then took the joint, surprised at how small it was between his big fingers.

"That's my boy," Dean murmured as he took his first hit, and for some reason the words coiled hot in Sam's belly.

\----

By the time the first joint was finished, Sam was pretty high. He knew he was, on some level, because he kept starting to speak then forgetting exactly what it was he had planned to say. Mostly he stayed silent, watching Dean and Andy joking around, laughing about the name of some song Sam had heard but probably forgotten.

"You're pretty quiet there, Sammy," Dean said, smiling wide and honest. Sam sat up and took a slow swig of his whisky, tilting the bottle a little too fast and getting some on his chin.

"I'm wasted," he eventually managed, and smiled as Dean crawled closer, sprawling out warm against him.

"Must be a novel experience, hmm?" Dean had finished his own drink and began to make a move on Sam's, pulling it from his numb fingers. From his nest of pillows opposite them, Andy began giggling, and it set Dean off too, who snickered as he took a gulp of Sam's whiskey.

"Hey," Sam protested, way too late. He snatched the bottle back and slumped down next to Dean, a little closer. They were to shoulder to shoulder, and it was more contact than Sam had had from his brother in a long time. It felt good, like exactly what he needed.

"Man, you two," Andy said, rummaging around in the pillows and withdrawing another, slightly battered-looking joint. "You're so close. Do you know you even like, walk in step?" He lit up and took a drag, eyebrows raised.

Beside Sam, Dean waved a hand as if to dismiss that. Just coincidence. It was what happened when you spent all day, every day with someone. You got comfortable. Sam knew they worked well together, better than well, and it made that hot _something_ coiled in his belly swell a little.

"You guys ever think about it?" Andy asked, his voice taking on that oddly tight quality of someone who was holding in a lungful of smoke.

"'Bout what?" Dean asked as Andy exhaled. Sam turned his face into Dean's neck, tired.

"About each other. I bet you do. I bet you think about. Kissing each other, you know? I would."

Sam raised his head, too sluggish to be properly startled, and stared at Andy. "Huh?" he said, imagining it, the image washing over him slow and hot. Dean's lips, the wet tip of his tongue, his hands. It was overwhelming.

"That's _wrong_ ," Dean said, but he sounded amused, and raised one hand to thread his fingers through Sam's hair.

"Go on," Andy urged, laughing a little. "Just for me, I won't tell." He wasn't even using his whammy.

Sam turned to face Dean, and all he wanted to do was check his expression, see what he was thinking. Instead, he ended up turning his cheek into Dean's palm, and they met mouth-to-mouth in a kiss.

It was pretty rank; Dean tasted of smoke, and pot, and stale whisky. But his lips were hot and wet, and he didn't hold back, pushing up into Sam and making a beautiful, beautiful sound that Sam belatedly recognized as the bubbling beginnings of laughter.

It should have been wrong that kissing Dean felt familiar, but Sam had watched Dean kiss so many girls, knew that head tilt, change of angle, sweep of tongue by heart. It still made his breathing speed up in his chest, and the hot spiral of arousal unfurl too low in his gut.

"God," Dean groaned as he pulled back, dropping his head onto the pillow and stretching out, loose-limbed. Sam could see he was hard, and didn't feel quite so high anymore. "God, Sammy," Dean added.

"That was so incredibly hot," Andy said. He laughed, dropping his head back against the pillows and raising the joint to his lips. Sam felt torn. The pit of his stomach had fallen out somewhere around the time Dean's lips had opened beneath his, but he was also feeling absurdly amused. Eventually he giggled, and it was so easy to just drop right down next to Dean again.

They rolled closer, a valley of pillows tilting them against each other, all lopsided and soft around the edges. Sam turned his face, and opened his mouth wet against Dean's neck. He could hear the little breathing noises Dean made, the sound of him swallowing, his heart beating deep inside him. "Sammy," Dean murmured, and Sam closed his eyes.

\----

Sam woke to the sound of traffic roaring past the van. His face was pressed into the rough denim of Dean's hip, and his mouth tasted like an animal had crawled into it and died. His leg was about as sore as it had ever been, cramped up against the wall. He could feel his heart beating through the wound, and the denim of his jeans seemed to be stained dark and damp with blood again.

"Fuck," he groaned, sitting up. Whatever animal had died in his mouth had also decided to shit all over his brain. His head felt like it was about to explode, and the lurid patterns on the inside of Andy's van swam before his eyes. Beside him, Dean shifted and groaned.

Sam clambered out of the van and scrubbed both hands through his hair. It was a beautiful day, the road out of Crescent basking in glorious sunshine. Andy was sitting on the trunk of the Impala, still reading the journal. Sam swallowed and limped over to join him.

"Hey man," Andy greeted him, and handed Sam his lukewarm coffee. He had probably conned it from a trucker, but Sam didn't really have the energy to care. It tasted like nectar from heaven. "So this is what you do?" Andy tapped the journal, opened to the section about reapers.

"Yeah." Sam tossed back the last of the coffee and set the cup down. He felt a little more human, even with his brain doing its best to break out of his skull. "It's not exactly what my career counselor had in mind."

"It must be fucking hard," Andy stated, and he sounded strangely vehement. Sam remembered him, holding the knife over Angelica, the gun over Webber. It _was_ hard, and Sam hoped that this was as much of it as Andy would ever see. "But," Andy rubbed at his lips and cast Sam a strange look. "You've got Dean. I mean, that must make it better."

Sam stared out at the sky, stretching blue and huge above them. He was struck by a sudden, aching wave of gratitude for Dean. Everything that was positive about his life was tied to his asshole brother. Dean didn't just make it better, he made it _good_.

"Yeah," Sam said eventually, and settled back a little on the Impala. She was warm from basking in the morning sun.

\----

Dean thanked Andy for the booze and the pot, and gave him a back thumping hug before Andy climbed back in the van and head for Guthrie. Sam just sat with his leg stretched out of the Impala and scowled, irritated by how chipper Dean was. He had breezed out from the van looking nothing more than a little bit rumpled, and spent an hour and a half regaling Andy with tales of his past drunken exploits.

"Your leg hurting?"

Dean was sorting the weapons into the trunk, and Sam couldn't see his face. He considered lying for a moment, then decided against it.

"Like a bitch."

Dean made a noise, low and sympathetic in his throat. He slammed the trunk closed and moved around to crouch by Sam's leg, pulling back the denim and hissing through his teeth. "We can stop at the first motel out of state and I'll do it up there. Can you wait?"

Sam stared at his upturned face for a moment, taking in the line of concern across his brow, the upset slant of his mouth. God, Dean was so—Sam couldn't even think it. A flood of memories washed over him, Dean's hand in his hair and the hot thrust of his tongue. Fuck.

"Yeah," Sam breathed eventually, "I can wait."

Something indescribable flashed in Dean's expression, and he stood, stretching enough to bare a thin strip of pale stomach below his shirt. Sam maneuvered his leg back into the car and Dean tossed himself into the driver's seat with a groan.

"Gotta say, Sammy," Dean began, sliding on his shades and starting the Impala up with a grin, "you really kiss like crap."

Sam hunched down in the seat, curling his legs up under the dash. "Shut up," he mumbled, "I was fucking wasted."

Dean shot him a look, a wicked little half smile, and then they were on the road, Exile on Main Street blaring from the speakers, the Impala's engine rumbling comfortable and too loud beneath them. Sam's leg fucking _hurt_ , and the music was obnoxious, and Dean was drumming on the wheel already, but. Sam tilted his head back against the seat, closed his eyes, and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 15/03/07 - Beta: Balefully.


End file.
